Chemicals scapegoat won’t stick

Sunday Mail Reporter

As parched suburbs in the capital continue grappling with erratic water supplies, City of Harare seems unsure on how it would effectively deal with the crisis.

However, the local authority seems determined to deflect blame to water chemical suppliers, which it incidentally owes huge sums of money.

In an interview with The Sunday Mail on Tuesday after a special council meeting to discuss the ongoing crisis, Harare Mayor Councillor Jacob Mafume accused Government-owned Chemplex Corporation of failure to supply the much-needed chemicals.

“We have not had water because of a shortage in chemicals. Our supplier, Chemplex, is failing to supply us with chemicals. We, therefore, need to find an alternative source of chemicals,” he said.

City of Harare, he added, has since decided to rope in another company, Nanotech, which it believes would provide a cheaper alternative.

“We watched a presentation by Nanotech, a company that we awarded a tender to produce chlorine dioxide. We are going to make sure that this company starts working within the shortest possible time. This is going to be our short-term solution.”

But it has emerged that Chemplex only supplies one of the many chemicals needed to purify Harare’s heavily polluted water. Revealingly, Harare Town Clerk Engineer Pakamire Moyo said current challenges do not rest with chemical suppliers, but unserviced debts.

He believes that a viable solution lies in reducing the number of chemicals used to treat Harare water.

“We want to have a contract for a trial period of three months with Nanotech to bring in a substitute for chlorine gas which is in short supply. We are not getting enough from the manufacturer in South Africa. Because of this, we want to generate chlorine dioxide at the Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Plant,” he said.

“Residents owe us a lot, hence we are failing to settle outstanding bills with suppliers, leading to poor delivery of treatment chemicals.”

An official at Chemplex, who preferred anonymity, said City of Harare is being insincere in blaming them.

“We supply them with one type of chemical. For water to be safe and clean, it requires more. What about other chemicals?”

It is believed that Harare also uses carbon PAC (powdered activated carbon), granular alum, LA sulphate, chlorine gas, WH lime, sodium silicate, sulphuric acid and HTH to treat its water.